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AP Literature Allusions - Literature Flashcards

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6340912450Babbitta self-satisfied person concern chiefly with business and middle-class ideals like material success; a member of the American working class whose unthinking attachment to its business and social ideals is such to make him a model of narrow-mindedness and self-satisfaction; after George F. Babbitt, the main character in the novel _________ by Sinclair Lewis.0
6340936357Brobdingnagiangigantic, enormous, on a large scale, enlarged; after _____________, the land of giants visited by Gulliver in Gulliver's Travels, by Johnathan Swift.1
6340972265Bumbleto speak or behave clumsily or faltering, to make a humming or droning sound; Middle English bomblem; a clumsy religious figure (a beadle) in a work of literature.2
6340986082Cinderellaone who gains affluence or recognition after obscurity and neglect, a person or thing whose beauty or worth remains unrecognized; after the fairytale heroine who escapes form a life a drudgery through the intervention of a fairy godmother and marries a handsome prince.3
6341008970Don Juana libertine, profligate, a man obsessed with seducing women; after ________, the legendary 14th century Spanish nobleman and libertine.4
6341016781Don Quixotesomeone overly idealistic to the point of having impossible dreams; from the crazed and impoverished Spanish noble who sets out to revive the impoverished Spanish noble who sets out to revive the glory of knighthood, romanticized in the musical The Man of La Mancha based on the story by Cervantes.5
6341033375Panglossianblindly or misleadingly optimistic; after Dr. __________ in Candide by Voltaire, a pedantic old tutor.6
6341047402Falstaffianfull of wit and bawdy humor; after ________, a fat, sensual, boastful, and mendacious knight who was the companion of Henry, Prince of Wales.7
6341055361FrankensteinAnything that threatens or destroys its creator; from the young scientist in Mary Shelley's novel of this name, who creates a monster that eventually destroys him.8
6341064671FridayA faithful and willing attendant, ready to turn his hand to anything, and kept as his servant and companion on the desert island.9
6341069571GalahadA pure and noble man with limited ambition; in the legends of King Arthur, the purest and most virtuous knight of the Round Table, the only knight to find the Holy Grail10
6341077578Jekyll and HydeA capricious person with two sides to his/her personality; from a character in the famous novel Dr. _______________________ who had more than one personality, a split personality (one good and one evil).11
6341086902Lilliputiandescriptive of a very small person or of something diminutive, trivial or petty; after the Lilliputians, tiny people in Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift.12
6383070066Little Lord Fauntleroyrefers either to a certain type of children's clothing or to a beautiful, but pampered and effeminate small boy; from a work by Frances H. Burnett, the main character, seven-year-old Cedric Errol, was a striking figure, dressed in black velvet with a lace collar and yellow curls13
6383119738Lotharioused to describe a man whose chief interest is seducing a woman; from the play The Fair Penitent by Nicholas Rowe, the main character and the seducer14
6383132590MalapropismThe usually unintentional humorous misuse or distortion of a word or phrase, especially the used of a word sounding somewhat like the one intended, but ludicrously wrong in context - Example: polo bears. Mrs. ____________ was a character noted for her misuse of words in R.B. Sheridan's comedy The Rivals15
6383164816Milquetoasta timid, weak, or unassertive person; from Casper __________, who was a comic strip character created by H.T. Webster16
6383209152Pickwickianhumorous, sometimes derogatory; from Samuel Pickwick, a character in Charles Dickens' ___________ Papers17
6383233322Pollyannaa person characterized by impermissible optimism and a tendency to find good in everything, a foolishly or blindly optimistic person; from Eleanor Porter's heroine, __________ Whittier, in the book ______________18
6383266682Pooh-baha pompous, ostentatious official, expecially one who, holding many offices, fulfills none of them, a person who holds high office; after _______ Lord-High-Everything-Else, character in The Mikado, a musical by Gilbert and Sullivan19
6383315823Quixotichaving foolish and impractical ideas of honor, or schemes for the general good; after Don Quixotic, a half-crazy reformer and knight of the supposed distressed, in a novel by the same name20
6383330585Robota machine that looks like a human being and performs various acts of a human being, a similar but functional machine whose lack of capacity for human emotions is often emphasized by a efficient, insensitive person who functions automatically, a mechanism guided by controls from Karel Capek's Rossum's Universal Robots (1920), taken from the Czech "robota" meaning drudgery21
6383355627Rodomontadebluster and boasting, to boast; from ____________, a brave but braggart knight in Bojardo's Orlando Inamorato; King of Sarza or Algiers, son of Ulteus, and commander of both horse and foot in the Saracen Army22
6383397448Scroogea bitter and/or greedy person; from Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, and elderly stingy miser who is given a reality check by 3 visiting ghosts23
6383414605Simon Legreea harsh, cruel, or demanding person in authority, such as an employer or officer that acts in this manner; from Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Ward, the brutal slave overseer24
6383428366Svengalia person with an irresistible hypnotic power; from a person in a novel written in 1894 by George Mauriers; a musician who hypnotizes and gains control over the heroine25
6450872765Tartufflehypocrite or someone who is hypocritical; central character in a comedy by Moliere produced in 1667; Moliere was a famous for his hypocritical piety26
6450872766Uncle Tomsomeone thought to have the t27

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